Dim Lights and Butterflies

Three

Louis is almost at breaking point, and he's got panic coursing through him. It's not the type of panic that makes you want to run, a monster chasing at your ankles up the stairs in the pitch darkness before bed. No, this panic is very much real, and nothing to do with his imagination. It's the type where everything that could possibly go wrong, goes wrong, and you have to try and tell yourself to calm down because it's not like this is a life or death situation, it's just a bump in the road called life.

Except it is life or death.

Orion is screaming at the top of his lungs, hot tears streaming down his reddened face, hands in fists as the hanger overtakes his body, letting Louis know that it is well over due for their tea time. Astrid continues to beg and beg to help cook dinner, until Louis has to give in until he wishes that maybe he didn't, because it's hard enough trying to cook on his own, let alone with an seven year old that has just as much knowledge on cooking as he has.

Things go fully tits up when the pan catches on fire, and Louis wishes he was just a sim, that the person controlling him will sort this whole mess out for him. But that never happens, and the fire alarm is screeching at him in its own panicked warning that there's something very much wrong, that there's smoke billowing out from a charred pan containing the little remnants of bacon that was in the pan.

Louis can feel his heart in his throat, plucking Orion from his highchair, the kid slapping and kicking at Louis as a full blown tantrum comes underway. It doesn't help how loud the bleeding alarm is, which seems to set him off more. Astrid covers her ears, looking up to Louis who is ordering everyone out the utility room's door, and into the back garden. Poppy is there, barking up at the house.

"Poppy! Protect," Louis demands, and Poppy instantly rounds around the kids, backing them to the end of the garden where she stands over them, not letting them out her sight. So that's what that command does.

Louis runs back into the house, finds the fire extinguisher under the sink and after a few tries, gets the bleeding thing going, the fire extinguishing out. He opens all the kitchen windows, flapping a tea towel at the alarm which soon calms down into silence. But it's nothing compared to how Louis is feeling inside. He's really gone over his head with this shit. He lied to Harry that he could cook, and this is what it's resulted to.

He continued this charade on, luck at his side for too long. Harry cooked a few meals, probably to show Louis that he is a good father after Anne's visit, and there's only so many instant meals Louis can pump the kids with until Harry catches on.

His heart hammers as he calls Harry, his luck clearly run out. He has to face his demons. Harry is at work up in York for a meeting. He answers on the third ring.

"Hello?" his voice sounds concerned.

Just hearing the voice, Louis' fears just pours from every crevice of his soul and body, him bursting into tears with trepidation. "I'm really sorry, Harry, I lied to you! I don't know what to do, I almost set the kitchen on fire trying to make a bacon pasta bake, a-and I know I said I could cook, but I wouldn't even trust myself in making a pot noodle at this point. The kids are outside, Orion is starving hungry, and he won't stop crying, I just... I don't know what to do. I know I lied to you, I'm sorry that I did. I know this will be the end of the line for me, but I just hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for this hiccup," he cries down the line, all sentences stringing into one big blur.

"Woah, woah, slow down. I'm not going to fire you for this. I'm disappointed that you lied to me, Louis, but there's people who cook for a living for a reason."

"So I'm not fired?" Louis questions, wiping his drying tears. He walks out into the back garden where Astrid and Orion are playing with Poppy's ball.

"No. Not yet, anyway," Harry replies.